I wouldn’t say it’s bad, just that the CAS generally has a different focus. You get a ton of great aircraft that carry relatively easy to aim 250kg bombs, though you usually only get one or two of them, and the 20mm cannons can also deal with open top and lightly armored targets.
Where they really shine is combating enemy aircraft because most of your options are well suited for defensive flying and their speed disadvantage is mostly negated by the small areas actual combat takes place in.
CAS is still probably not a good reason to specifically choose Japan, at least if you’re only interested in air to ground though. The only BR where there is no better option is 7.3, and the Albatros is being moved to 7.7 very soon, and if it still keeps doing well might end up at 8.0 where it would need to choose between a mostly 7.3 (one 7.7 light tank) ground lineup or being forced to act as worse SAAB 105 in the 8.3 lineup, all before you even unlock it depending on how fast you research.
Other than that it’s the tree with the second best Kh-38 carrier (and the only one aside from USSR so far), so if you enjoy top tier CAS and either already played or don’t want to play USSR this is your best choice for that.
I can recommend the techtree, but only if you enjoy playing air to air as well.
Ah, I wasn’t looking at ground BRs. I still think it’d be bad at 8.3 though, at that BR it’s essentially guaranteed to face some of the best gun-based SPAA the game has to offer, alongside the first missiles in uptiers.
I can see it moving to 8.0 still depending on how 7.7 plays out now, and compared to SPAA at the BR (mainly ZSU-23-4) it is arguably not a bad matchup, but the lack of any 8.0 ground vehicles would really hold it back.
As plenty of other nations are, what’s new? Having a CAS jet without a lineup isn’t really new it sucks but if the vehicle is over performing there’s a problem.
I’d suggest moving it up and waiting a bit, a big thing is Japan is really popular as they have been gaijins favorite nation for nearly a year and people have decided to hop on the bandwagon to try out all their new vehicles so part of it performing really well could be due to veteran players wanting to seal club while grinding lol
This guy wants a recommendation for a nation to play for CAS as a casual player that doesn’t want to rush to any specific BR. By the time he gets to it, it just won’t be OP anymore.
At best it’s a very good 7.7 CAS aircraft held back by a mediocre lineup and facing any fighter aircraft, at worst it’s at 8.0 with a choice of either uptiering the already not great 7.7 lineup or moving to 8.3 where it’s just not good anymore. I’m not trying to argue about what BR the Albatros should be at here, I’m just trying to say that it’s not a good recommendation for this player.
Though to be fair the RCV (P) at 7.7 is pretty good for just capturing points, scouting and getting the air spawn, so if you don’t want to do anything but CAS then 8.0 might still be decent
Idk it’ll basically be the Saab 105 in terms of performance where it’s miserable as anything but a CAS aircraft and the rocket CCIP allows you to sit outside SPAA range you’ll just need to play with a bit more of a plan in mind before engaging
RCV(P) imo is better in uptiers to farm kills on German LTs since they are so plentiful
If it was known it’d stay at 7.7 then yeah it’s a great recommendation, but considering this player wants to use medium tanks as well moving it up to 8.0 basically forces him into the 8.3 lineup. There it’s basically just a more miserable SAAB-105 one 0.3 BR step lower.
And since there’s already quite a lot of players wanting it to move to 8.0 even under the current BR changes it’s not impossible it will move to 8.0 soon. At that point the only reason to recommend Japan for CAS is as the second best Kh-38 nation, and at that point just go for USSR directly with more versatile CAS throughout the tree and even a better Kh-38 carrier, instead of Japan who depend on the very much time limited “flavor of the update” OP lineup that won’t even exist by the time it takes a casual player to get there. Even the Ho-Ri will be removed next month, so depending on how much this guy plays he might not even be able to get that.
I’m still spading II (P), but Centauro I 120 is awesome, I even talismanned it in the past. It’s a very good vehicle for support and scouting, I still use it at 12.7 and sometimes it gives better results than my 2A7HU 😆 although I can’t say much about top tier CAS options, as I mostly ignore top tier jets in general (need to spade them, I’m not into ARH gameplay), I use AH-129D which can do some damage, but it’s definitely not something like DIRCM helicopters with LMUR or AGM-159.
PS I use SAMP/T extensively in top tier, succesfully killing other’s CAS, which usually fly a lot especially if you are playing against Russia and China)
I’m gonna pull a @Pheonix_RX01 and say “Sweden is OP most strong nation in game of u want ezpz gameplay choose Sweden. It’s so OP that even with constant unneeded nerfs it’s still OP”
I was able to get 50k RP ( stock grind keeps me entertained and if you just want to do cas at top tier doing air grind then using m1a1 AIM works) f15E storm breakers are better than spice bombs according to sum people and don’t forget about china they are also pretty gud like a shorter USSR with different tanks and better reverse speeds, and you can just cap points in USA XM800T for the whole game and grind Abrams and scout with since but honestly which ever tanks and air you think look better this may sound not useful but it is makes you enjoy the grind more I think
your easiest option is USSR since u got the T-80-E1 that speeds it up a lot and USSR gets gud CAS at mostly every BR but so does USA and Abrams sepv3 is very gud so fully your option what ever one you think will be more enjoyable and 5th gen soon maybe but (those wont be good for CAS) 4.5 will be (f-15EX and su35) maybe factor that if you like any of those